


The Sun Is With The Stars

by SatiricalDraperies



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 12:39:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17121545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SatiricalDraperies/pseuds/SatiricalDraperies
Summary: Haleth asks Caranthir about an unusual expression he uses one night.





	The Sun Is With The Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morifiinwe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morifiinwe/gifts).



Caranthir wakes as Menelmacar passes directly overhead, marking the beginning of Haleth’s watch. She has always insisted on not placing herself above any other of the Haladin, sharing equally in the labor and menial tasks, even when it involves taking the unwanted shift just after midnight. To add to the discomfort, it’s the middle of winter, and the nights are long and cold. Although Haleth is not yet forty years old, Caranthir has seen how the strain of leading her people has taken its toll, both mentally and physically.

He passes the previous guard on her way back to bed, exchanging a terse nod. The Haladin have finally accepted his presence, but some are still slightly uncomfortable around the elf. Still, he figures, they don’t need to love him. Theirs is a mutually beneficial partnership, and he has the friendship of Haleth, at least. What more matters?

“Ach,” Haleth groans, lowering herself down to sit on a tree stump near where Caranthir is standing. “I can stand the cold, but why must be it be dark all the time as well?”

Caranthir lets out a low chuckle as she pulls her furs even tighter, masking her face almost entirely, but even still, he tugs his own collar up further to cover his neck.

“The sun is with the stars,” he mutters, more out of habit than anything.

“Hmm?”

“Just something I heard once.” 

He doesn’t realize Haleth is expecting him to elaborate until she coughs pointedly. For all of her strengths as a leader, she’s never been one for tact.

“Well?”

“So impatient,” he chides teasingly, pretending this is all part of his story-telling. “Let me build up the dramatic effect.”

Haleth rolls her eyes and gestures for him to continue.

“It was a night much like tonight when I heard this story for the first time.” Caranthir looks up into the distance, eyebrows furrowed and chin jutting out. He cuts an imposing figure, what with the thin silver starlight silhouetting his already sharp elvish features. Haleth takes one look at this display and snorts, elbowing him. Caranthir smiles and lets his face relax, but he still watches the spaces between the stars like they are the ones telling the story and he is just their messenger.

“Do you know how far away the stars are?” 

It is a rhetorical question, and Haleth doesn’t answer.

“You and your people have travelled a long way, as have mine. Take those distances, then add the distances that all of the other people of Arda have travelled, not just those alive today, but everyone who has ever lived, who has ever walked this earth. Can you imagine this sum?”

“Nay,” Haleth says softly. She’s never had a head for the abstract, but she has a feeling that very few can imagine the massive number Caranthir has just presented her with.

“My father was the first one who presented this idea of a sum so unimaginably large that it could not be calculated, a sum so large that if one could ever catch up to it, it would have already stretched twice as far and you would have forever lost your chance to quantify the unquantifiable. He called it infinity, and he had a bit of a minor obsession with finding these infinite sums. The length walked, the ages of all those alive added together, the number of thoughts had in a lifetime… But his favorite infinity was the distance to the stars, precisely because it wasn't an infinity. He reasoned that if the stars were real and solid objects, then he must be able to calculate their distance, or at least the distance to each individual star. 

“What he forgot to account for, of course, was that the stars are not fixed into place. Elbereth did not set them in stone, she set them adrift to traverse the heavens. You notice that sometimes they are brighter or seem to be different colors, or appear in slightly different positions each night. This is the design of Elbereth, but it is not done by her hand. There is another who moves the stars, and her name is Ilmarë.

“My father did not know of Ilmarë or her work. How could he? None of the Noldor, or even the Vanyar or Teleri had met her. Only the Avari recognized another Ainu living amongst the stars, in addition to all the ones that Oromë had told them of. I met one of the Avari, once,” he pauses for thought, crinkles his nose and forehead, looks up towards the left. “I do not think she recognized me for who I was. If she had, she never would've spoken to me or told me this tale. 

“But it is a beautiful one, and one worth sharing, I believe. So perhaps when she looked at me she did see a son of Fëanáro, but chose to disregard that fact in favor of sharing the story of Ilmarë, and how she fell in love with the sun. 

“Ilmarë is the handmaiden of Elbereth: she is the one who executes her will in the sky, moving the stars to where they are needed most. And what is the sun if not a star? Ilmarë mapped the course of the sun, and she arranged her stars to always point the way north to guide the sun. But when the sun finally set sail, the last fruit of Laurelin shone so brightly that the stars could not be seen, and Arien was lost in her own brilliance. 

“She wandered across the sky, blinded in every way. She did not know where she was, nor how far above the ground she was. At one point she skimmed the earth, burning the land into a desert. Later on, she sailed so high that all of the light and warmth was pulled up and out of the land, and it has never quite returned. Tilion, the guardian of the moon, tried to reach her, but he was burned so badly that even now the memory of his wound returns, over and over again each month, blocking nearly all of his light from view.

“By all accounts Arien was lost and the sun was a failure. The Ainur regretted sending someone as strong and bright as Arien to guide the already strong and bright sun. After Tilion returned, briefly, to be healed and told Manwë and Elbereth of the damage Arien had unknowingly inflicted upon the earth, they considered how to best deal with the situation. It was clear that Arien was dangerous, but not malicious. If only someone could get through to her, she might be saved. And if not, if no heart could be found within the fire? No one wanted to know what would happen then. They had to hold out hope.

“But who would dare walk through the flames? Unwittingly, Tilion had scared off many of the Ainur who might have tried. Elbereth and Manwë were beginning to acknowledge that they may need an alternative plan, one that took Arien and her well-being out of the equation. They loved her as all the Ainur loved one another, but they had to put the Children first. Manwë set out to clear a pathway for Elbereth to reach the sun and diminish it. That was the most they could do. The fruit of Laurelin was too precious to be destroyed, and even if they had tried, Arien was one of the Ainur and could never be extinguished. She could not be ravaged, but she would be removed from the sky forever.

“And yet when Manwë reached the sky, he was met by Ilmarë, who blocked his path. She asked him what business he had, and upon hearing his answer, she made him vow not to harm Arien until she had tried to get through to her. Manwë could not believe that Ilmarë would succeed where so many others had failed, but he had to let her try. He had to explore every possibility, no matter how small, if it might save Arien and the sun.

“Ilmarë approached the sun’s flames with all of the caution of a hunter returning home after a long hunt, not knowing if they’ll be recognized after being away for so long. She finally reached Arien with all of the joy of the hunter’s wife realizing that she has her love back.

‘Ilmarë swept Arien away from this world to an astral plane, where she showed her the full expanse of the sky. Arien saw how all of the stars fit together, how they danced together through the great darkness. And when she finally left Ilmarë behind, secure in the knowledge of her purpose and place in the universe, she left her with a kiss and a promise.”

“What was her promise?” Haleth speaks softly, not wanting to disturb the moment. She thinks she knows the answer, but she wants affirmation.

Caranthir smiles, then speaks the words she knew he would. 

“That she would always come back to Ilmarë, her greatest love, and that the sun would dance with the stars once more.”


End file.
